In automatic analyzers, and in particular in clinical chemistry analyzers, it is convenient to have a reagent container assembly which contains a plurality of reagent containers suitable for carrying out various analysis and which can be easily handled and installed in the analyzer.
For proper and reliable operation of the analyzer it is indispensable to avoid using the wrong reagent when performing an analysis. It is therefore important to make sure that the proper reagents are loaded into the reagent container assembly installed in the analyzer and that the reagent management system of the analyzer has information that identifies those reagents. For this purpose, the individual reagent containers as well as the reagent container assemblies are identified e.g. by means of barcode labels for the purpose of automatic identification and control by the reagent management system of the analyzer.
In spite of the above actions and steps for ensuring proper identification and control of the reagents being used, it cannot be fully excluded that reagent containers installed in the analyzer are manually taken out and replaced by another reagent and that the reagent management system of the analyzer may fail to detect errors that may occur during such manipulations.
The problematic situation just mentioned is particularly prone to occur when the reagent container assemblies are manually handled for installing them into the analyzer and removing them from the analyzer when necessary. In larger analyzer systems, the risk of errors in handling reagents can be considerably reduced by an expensive, fully automatic handling of the regents. Such an approach is however not possible in case of a low cost, relatively small analyzer intended to be used in small laboratories or even by medical doctors in their own laboratories, because in those cases, in order to reduce the manufacturing costs of the analyzer, manual handling of the reagent assemblies is indicated. Nevertheless, also in those cases, it is desirable to reduce the risk of errors in handling the reagents as far as possible.